Povitica Bread Recipe

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Povitica bread is a traditional Eastern European dessert bread that is as lovely to look at as it is to eat! A sweet swirled bread filled with nuts and cinnamon sugar, this Povitica bread recipe makes a delicious holiday treat.

 I am so excited to be this month’s Daring Bakers’s host, and I hope that you really like the recipe I have chosen!

I was first introduced to Povitica from a friend of mine (Hi Brianne!!). We happened to be at the Farmer’s Market and when we passed a particular booth selling specialty bread, and she just went ecstatic. She and her family have been buying these loaves of the swirled bread every holiday season, and she was very excited to see them in the middle of the summer. I didn’t know what the excitement was about, but the loaves of bread were beautiful, and when sliced, had delicate circular designs on each slice.

After tasting the wonderful bread we bought at the Farmer’s Market, I knew I needed to learn how to make this myself. Especially since that one single loaf cost an arm and a leg ($25! For one loaf!) I spent days and days trying to find recipes online, but I didn’t have any luck. (However, I did a search the other day and it seems that a few recipes have sprung up in the meantime.)

After much research, I created my own povitica recipe, one that I think is a very close match to the delicious loaf of bread I splurged on at the Farmer’s Market. And I am so excited to share this Povitica recipe with you!

The Daring Bakers community did a fantastic, awesome, wonderful job making povitica! They came up with some fantastic fillings, and all their loaves look truly great!

Another of my favorite traditional holiday recipes is Traditional Yeasted Stollen and Apple Cider Wassail! 

What is Povitica?

Povitica recipe is a dessert bread filled with a sweet filling and rolled to create intricate patterns. It weighs an amazing 2.5 pounds when done!! They are usually for sale during the holidays, but they can cost around $25 for one loaf.

Other names for Povitica include:

• Nutroll
• Potica
• Kalachi
• Strudia
• Gubana
• Makiwiec, and
• Orahnjaca

Family recipes and the secrets on how to roll the bread so thin are passed down through generations of families. However, the tradition of baking this type of bread has become somewhat of a dying art form, so I thought it would be a wonderful opportunity for to learn to make this wonderful sweet bread.

Filling for Povitica

The traditional filling for this bread is an English walnut filling, but other typical fillings also include poppy seed, apple-cinnamon, apricot preserves, and a sweet cheese (like cream cheese). 

Here is a recipe for a traditional poppy seed filling, as donated by Daring Baker Bojana of Kitchen Love. This is her family’s recipe.

• 600 g ground poppy seeds
• 250 g sugar
• 200 ml hot milk
• 150 g raisins (optional)
• 1 vanilla pod, scraped.
• Grind poppy seeds in a spice grinder until they are fine, they will change colors from gray to indigo or black in color.

Mix dry ingredients and then add boiling hot milk to it. If it seems too thin, cook for a few minutes.

How long does it take to make Povitica?

The hands on time for the recipe isn’t very long, but you will have some rising time, and it takes a while to roll out the dough so that it is really thin and then roll into the loaf shape.

• Making the dough: 40 minutes
• Rising: 1 hour and 30 minutes
• Rolling and assembly: 20 minutes per loaf, a generous total of 1 hour
• Baking: 1 hour
• Cooling: 30 minutes
• Making the filling: 15 minutes, including grinding of the nuts

How to Roll Povitica

This is a promotional video from a company that makes it, Strawberry Hill, but it shows them rolling the povitica. Watch this a few times before baking so you get an idea of how thin they roll the dough out, and how they create the patterning in the dough.

Povitica from Strawberry Hill
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_W6pmqzVJ4c

How to Make the Povitica Recipe

Make Walnut Filling:

1. In a large bowl mix together ground walnuts, sugar, cinnamon, and cocoa.
2. Heat milk and butter to boiling. Pour the liquid over the nut/sugar mixture. Add eggs and vanilla and mix thoroughly.
3. Allow the filling to stand at room temperature until ready to be spread onto the dough.
4. If the mixture thickens, stir in a small amount of warm milk.

Activate Yeast:

1. In a small bowl, stir 2 teaspoons sugar, 1 teaspoon flour, and the yeast into warm water and cover with plastic wrap.
2. Allow yeast to stand for 5 minutes

Make the Dough:

1. In a medium saucepan, heat the milk up to just below boiling (about 180 F or 82 C), stirring constantly so that a film does not form on the top of the milk. You want it hot enough to scald you, but
   not boiling. Cool slightly, until it is about 110 degrees.
2. In a large bowl, mix the scalded milk, ¾ cup sugar, and the salt until combined.
3. Add the beaten eggs, yeast mixture, melted butter, and 2 cups of flour.
4. Blend thoroughly and slowly add remaining flour, mixing well until the dough just starts to clean the bowl. Don’t add too much flour at this point, you still want it to be fairly wet and sticky.
5. Turn dough out onto a floured surface and knead, gradually adding flour a little at a time, until smooth and does not stick. Note: I did not have to use all 8 cups of flour.

6. Divide the dough into 4 equal pieces (they will each weigh about 1.25 pounds)
7. Place dough in 4 lightly oiled bowls, cover loosely with a layer of plastic wrap and then a kitchen towel and let rise in a warm place for an hour and a half, or until doubled in size.

Roll and Assemble the Dough:

1. Spread a clean sheet or cloth over your entire table so that it is covered. Sprinkle sheet with a couple of tablespoons to a handful of flour (use flour sparingly)
2. Place the dough on the sheet and roll the dough out with a rolling pin, starting in the middle and working your way out, until it measures roughly 10-12 inches in diameter. Spoon 1 to 1.5 teaspoons of melted butter on top.
3. Using the tops of your hands, stretch dough out from the center until the dough is thin and uniformly opaque. If you prefer, you can use a rolling pin.

As you work, continually pick up the dough from the table, not only to help in stretching it out, but also to make sure that it isn’t sticking. When you think it the dough is thin enough,
try to get it a little thinner. It should be so thin that you can see the color and perhaps the pattern on the sheet underneath.

4. Spoon the filling evenly over the dough until covered, leaving space around the edges.

5. Lift the edge of the cloth and gently roll the dough up like a jelly roll.

Once the dough is rolled up into a log shape, gently lift it up and place it in the shape of a “U” into a greased loaf pan, with the ends meeting in the middle. You want to coil the dough around itself, as this will give the dough its characteristic look when sliced.

Repeat with remaining three loaves.

6. Brush the top of each loaf with a mixture of 1/2 cup of cold STRONG coffee and 2 tablespoons of sugar. If you prefer, you can use egg whites in place of the coffee.

1. Cover pans lightly will plastic wrap and allow to rest for approximately 15 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Remove plastic wrap from dough and place into the preheated oven and bake for approximately 15 minutes. Turn down the oven temperature to 300 degrees and bake for an additional 45 minutes, or until done. Check the bread every 30 minutes to ensure that the bread is not getting too brown. You may cover the loaves with a sheet of aluminum foil if you need to.
3. Remove bread from the oven, bursh with melted butter, then allow to cool on a wire rack for 20-30 minutes.
4. The best way to cut Povitica loaves into slices is by turning the loaf upside down and slicing with a serrated knife.

Povitica Recipe Notes:

1. The povitica recipe calls for using a sheet on top of your workspace. Yes, a bedsheet! This is not necessary, but it is a lot easier to roll out the dough with one. The dough is very sticky, so using the lightly floured sheet helps to keep the dough from sticking too badly. It also helps that you can move the sheet around as you work, and you can also move to a clean area of the sheet for each loaf that you roll out. Using a sheet also helps to roll out the dough thinly.
2. A sheet is also used for rolling the povitica up, but again, it is not necessary. For those wondering, all my dough and filling goo washed out perfectly, so no problems there! If you decide not to use a sheet, a pastry scraper will come in very handy when you roll up the dough.
3. There are two ways to roll the dough up.
   If you watch the video shown below, you will see that the sheet is lifted and used as momentum for rolling the dough up. This technique takes a bit of finesse, but I encourage you to try it out. However, the dough can also be rolled up by hand, similar to making cinnamon rolls.
4. During the second rising time, after the dough has been filled or rolled, you have a decision to make. If you want a more dense loaf, allow the bread to rise for 15 minutes before baking (as the recipe states). If you want your bread to be less dense and lighter, allow it to rise for a full hour before baking it.

How to Store Povitica

There are two options for storing povitica:

Povitica will keep fresh for 1 week at room temperature and for 2 weeks if refrigerated.

Baked povitica can be frozen for up to three months when wrapped a layer of wax paper followed by a layer of aluminum foil. It is recommended not to freeze povitica with cream cheese fillings, as it doesn’t hold up to being thawed really well – it crumbles.

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Yield: 4 loaves

Povitica Recipe (Sweet Dessert Bread)

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Povitica is a sweet dessert bread with a filling of cinnamon sugar and walnuts. This Povitica recipe makes the perfect holiday bread.NOTE: Please see the blog post for detailed, step-by-step photos on how to shape, fill, and roll the dough.

Prep Time 40 minutes

Cook Time 1 hour

Total Time 1 hour 40 minutes

Ingredients

To activate the Yeast:

• 2 teaspoons Sugar
• 1 teaspoon All-Purpose Flour
• ½ cup warm water
• 2 Tablespoons Dry Yeast

Dough:

• 2 cups Whole Milk
• ¾ cup Sugar
• 3 teaspoons Table Salt
• 4 Large Eggs
• ½ cup Unsalted Butter, melted
• 8 cups sifted All-Purpose Flour, divided

Topping:

• ½ cup Cold STRONG Coffee
• 2 Tablespoons  Granulated Sugar
• Melted Butter

Walnut Filling

• 7 cups Ground English Walnuts
• 1 cup Whole Milk
• 1 cup Unsalted Butter
• 2 Whole Eggs, Beaten
• 1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
• 2 cups Granulated Sugar
• 1 Teaspoon Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
• 1 Teaspoon Cinnamon

Instructions

Make Walnut Filling:

1. In a large bowl mix together ground walnuts, sugar, cinnamon, and cocoa.
2. Heat milk and butter to boiling. Pour the liquid over the nut/sugar mixture. Add eggs and vanilla and mix thoroughly.
3. Allow the filling to stand at room temperature until ready to be spread onto the dough.
4. If the mixture thickens, stir in a small amount of warm milk.

Activate Yeast:

1. In a small bowl, stir 2 teaspoons sugar, 1 teaspoon flour, and the yeast into warm water and cover with plastic wrap.
2. Allow yeast to stand for 5 minutes.

Make the Dough:

1. In a medium saucepan, heat the milk up to just below boiling (about 180 F or 82 C), stirring constantly so that a film does not form on the top of the milk. You want it hot enough to scald you, but not boiling. Cool slightly, until it is about 110 degrees F.
2. In a large bowl, mix the scalded milk, ¾ cup sugar, and the salt until combined.
3. Add the beaten eggs, yeast mixture, melted butter, and 2 cups of flour.
4. Blend thoroughly and slowly add remaining flour, mixing well until the dough just starts to clean the bowl. Don't add too much flour at this point, you still want it to be fairly wet and sticky.
5. Turn dough out onto a floured surface and knead, gradually adding flour a little at a time, until smooth and does not stick. Note: I did not have to use all 8 cups of flour.
6. Divide the dough into 4 equal pieces (they will each weigh about 1.25 pounds)
7. Place dough in 4 lightly oiled bowls, cover loosely with a layer of plastic wrap and then a kitchen towel and let rise in a warm place for an hour and a half, or until doubled in size.

To Roll and Assemble the Dough:

1. Spread a clean sheet or cloth over your entire table so that it is covered. Sprinkle sheet with a couple of tablespoons to a handful of flour (use flour sparingly)
2. Place the dough on the sheet and roll the dough out with a rolling pin, starting in the middle and working your way out, until it measures roughly 10-12 inches in diameter. Spoon 1 to 1.5 teaspoons of melted butter on top.
3. Using the tops of your hands, stretch the dough out from the center until the dough is thin and uniformly opaque. If you prefer, you can use a rolling pin. As you work, continually pick up the dough from the table, not only to help in stretching it out but also to make sure that it isn’t sticking. When you think it the dough is thin enough, try to get it a little thinner. It should be so thin that you can see the color and perhaps the pattern on the sheet underneath.
4. Spoon filling evenly over the dough until covered.
5. Lift the edge of the cloth and gently roll the dough up like a jelly roll. Once the dough is rolled up into a log shape, gently lift it up and place it in the shape of a “U” into a greased loaf pan, with the ends meeting in the middle. You want to coil the dough around itself, as this will give the dough its characteristic look when sliced. Repeat with remaining three loaves.
6. Brush the top of each loaf with a mixture of 1/2 cup of cold STRONG coffee and 2 tablespoons of sugar. If you prefer, you can use egg whites in place of the coffee.
7. Cover pans lightly will plastic wrap and allow to rest for approximately 15 minutes.
8. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Remove plastic wrap from dough and place into the preheated oven and bake for approximately 15 minutes. Turn down the oven temperature to 300 degrees F. and bake for an additional 45 minutes, or until done. Check the Povitica every 30 minutes to ensure that the bread is not getting too brown. You may cover the loaves with a sheet of aluminum foil if you need to.
9. Remove bread from the oven, brush with melted butter, then allow to cool on a wire rack for 20-30 minutes.
10. The best way to cut Povitica loaves into slices is by turning the loaf upside down and slice with a serrated knife.

Nutrition Information:

Yield:

48

Serving Size:

1
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 296Total Fat: 17gSaturated Fat: 5gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 11gCholesterol: 41mgSodium: 152mgCarbohydrates: 31gFiber: 2gSugar: 13gProtein: 6g

Did you make this recipe?

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